en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 00:39:08 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review5424505889 Sun, 13 Apr 2025 00:39:08 -0700 /review/show/5424505889 Anmol has read Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Paperback) by C.G. Jung
Enjoyed reading this, but very little here that I haven't encountered before - in Theosophists, in Vivekananda and Aurobindo. I can't help but feel that Jung is too accepting of religion, and his reading of Nietzsche is quite flawed. Just because people have religious ideas, and when they start to doubt those ideas, it leads to neurosis - the answer to their neurosis should not necessarily be the reintroduction of religious ideas in the new garb of "archetypes of the psyche." Instead, why not let them go to war with themselves, and sacrifice themselves to the war, for the emergence of something greater in the future society - the society where man proclaims man and not god? This would be Nietzsche's response to Jung. I, however, am more conflicted. Jung definitely helps his patients, but doesn't he fail to recognise that something has irretrievably changed for humanity in the nineteenth century? Haven't we discovered the possibility to doubt, and doesn't the very presence of this possibility make a sincere practice of the old religions impossible today? Instead of talking enough about the new religion that the modern man needs, which may or may not be Nietzschean, Jung is too forgiving to the "wisdom of the East". ]]> Review7479424079 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 20:59:57 -0700 /review/show/7479424079 Anmol has read Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (Paperback) by Richard F. Gombrich
Pretty well-written, good introduction to the context of the Buddha's time and all the way to Ashoka's mission to Sri Lanka. Not a lot about "modern Colombo" here though, beyond Anagarika Dharmapala and "protestant" Buddhism, but I was really just looking for a good introduction to early Indian Buddhism and how that's related to the Pali Canon, so I'm not complaining. ]]> Review7463427700 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 21:18:50 -0700 /review/show/7463427700 Anmol has read Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India (Paperback) by Douglas Ober
Pretty well-written and a solid approach to historiography for the most part. I'm glad that someone covered Kosambi and Sankrityayan's story in English. But I still think that Ober is trying to set up a reductivistic antagonism here - his discussion of Vivekananda's "love" for the Buddha is very simplistic, and relies heavily on Jyotirmaya Sharma, whose view of Vivekananda is definitely flawed. Also, the criticism of Gandhi and the Birlas is somewhat exaggerated, at least for me. They did a lot more for modern Indian Buddhism than Ober is willing to admit - indeed, even he appears confused at times about how to make sense of JK Birla. ]]> Review7439025874 Thu, 03 Apr 2025 21:16:39 -0700 /review/show/7439025874 Anmol has read What the Buddha Thought (Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies Monographs) by Richard F. Gombrich
I am broadly in support of Gombrich's central premise: to understand the Buddha's words in the context of Upanishadic Brahminism. Gombrich quotes extracts from the Pali Canon which, in fact, directly demonstrate that the Buddha was responding (with satire and irony) to passages in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. This, I think, is an amazing discovery, and clarifies that the Buddha was definitely aware of the early, large Upanishads - the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya. It is unfortunate that the later Pali commentators lost all touch with these Brahminical texts, and so could not explain the context of the Buddha's words, and importantly, how he differs from Brahminism. What we need today is a comparative study between Buddhism and Vedanta, which, following Gombrich, shows the Buddhist response to the Upanishads, and goes beyond the 20th century Hindu assimilationists who thought that the Buddha was just repeating what the Upanishads said in a "negative" way. It's about time that Indian philosophers realised that there is no concept of 'Being' in Buddhism: Nirvana is not a transcendental realisation of some otherworldly realm, like Brahman. At least, working with the assumption that the Buddha has something more to say about the world, and that all knowledge is not contained in the Vedas and Vedanta, would help. ]]> Review3875832595 Thu, 03 Apr 2025 20:55:03 -0700 /review/show/3875832595 Anmol gave 5 stars to Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy (Paperback) by Antoine Panaioti
bookshelves: favorites
Probably one of my favourite books I've read in the past year, and directly answers a lot of the questions I've had in my mind for a while, along the four Indo-German coordinates of Schopenhauer, Vedanta, Nietzsche, and Buddhism. I think Panaioti is correct in identifying Nietzsche and Buddha as kindred philosophers: in their rejection of Being (God/Brahman), and hence, any purposiveness / telos based interpretation of the world. Also really insightful chapters on the medical notion of nirvana in Buddhism, and the Buddha as the great physician (bhaishajyaguru) who puts out / extinguishes the fire of desire.

But at the same time, I think Panaioti is significantly weakened by his lack of engagement with Buddhist notions of karma and rebirth. Could the Nietzschean "eternal recurrence" be compared with the bodhisattva's vow to return to the world infinite times to help other beings? A few more chapters which actually considered rebirth as a metaphysical truth posited by the Buddha, and not a "historical or cultural contingency" would have made his book a more serious contribution to Buddhist studies. As it stands, it's an interesting - and important - intervention in cross-cultural philosophy, but not something that can actually help Buddhists understand their faith better. Nonetheless, I think Panaioti is right in arguing that any possible religious practice today must answer Nietzsche's challenge of nihilism, and the Buddhadharma could possibly survive this challenge. ]]> ReadStatus9237612641 Thu, 27 Mar 2025 01:38:15 -0700 /review/show/7439025874 Anmol wants to read What the Buddha Thought by Richard F. Gombrich
]]> ReadStatus9233900068 Wed, 26 Mar 2025 05:44:28 -0700 /review/show/7436385637 Anmol wants to read Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche's Educator by Christopher Janaway
]]> Review3877024311 Wed, 26 Mar 2025 03:35:15 -0700 /review/show/3877024311 Anmol gave 3 stars to The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (English and Chinese Edition) by Bodhidharma
]]> ReadStatus9229361662 Tue, 25 Mar 2025 03:14:04 -0700 /review/show/7433159445 Anmol has read Celibacy and Religious Traditions by Carl Olson
]]> Review7430342839 Mon, 24 Mar 2025 05:26:34 -0700 /review/show/7430342839 Anmol has read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Paperback) by Eckhart Tolle
If you got the central premise of The Power of Now, there's really no point to this book. Not sure what Tolle was trying to achieve with this one - for all his cautioning against the ego, publishing repetitive texts because your first one became an NYT Bestseller may just be the ego perpetuating itself, now in a spiritual guise. I wanted more of the evolutionary perspective here - how does Tolle view the future of humanity towards a lessening of the ego? What after that - utopia, heaven on earth? Would have been much better if he began with that, and just assumed familiarity with The Power of Now for his readers, instead of repeating so much of the content and necessary implications of that book here. ]]>